One task which is carried out on a constant basis in a hospital is the cleaning of bed pans, urine bottles, and sample containers. Usually, the bed pan, for example, is taken by a hospital worker to a nearby washroom where the contents are dumped, flushed, or otherwise discharged down the bowl of a commode. Afterwards the bedpan, or other container, is rinsed with water supplied from a shower-like nozzle mounted at the end of a hose, pipe, or tube which is pivotally or otherwise connected to an adjacent wall, usually the wall at the rear end or the back end of the commode. It often occurs that, during the cleaning and rinsing process, the contents of the bedpan or commode splash or spray upon the hospital worker. The hospital worker, for the most part, wears rubber gloves and an apron, and often a hat or cap. However, rinse water can spray upon the unprotected face. Since the contents of the bedpan may contain blood, or other body fluids, which may have a dangerous material or hazardous product contained therein, the process of cleaning a bedpan presents a potential health risk to the hospital worker. The hazardous material contained within the bedpan, or similar object, can enter into the nose, eyes, mouth, ears, a wound or other opening in the head and chest of the human body, thereby leading to infection.
Heretofore, the task of cleaning a bedpan was considered merely an unpleasant but necessary task and getting splashed in the process was accepted as inevitable. Certainly it was not considered a task which was health or even life threatening. However, evidence has been developed which has called into question the benign nature of such a cleaning task. For example, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is contracted by the exchange of body fluids, particularly blood and semen. Hepatitis and mononucleosis may also be acquired by contact with another's body fluids. Since in a hospital environment, it is not unusual for a bedpan or a similar container to contain human blood, the routine task of cleaning a bedpan can present a potentially life threatening danger. It is only prudent that steps should be taken to minimize such a danger, especially when one considers the millions of times each day that these cleaning tasks take place.